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The Vala language compiler can handle a very different looking syntax, Genie, which arguably could be considered a different language or an alternative syntax for one language. AFIK, anything you can do in Vala, you can write in Genie (ignoring work-in-progress details, bugs) to the delight of anyone who doesn't like curly brackets.

Is there some language or alternative syntax bearing the same relation to standard C++ that Genie has with Vala? It should allow doing anything that one might do in C++. (It need not be readable by the normal C++ compilers, however - I don't expect that at this point in time.)

(Side issue: Genie/Vala is the only example I can think of now. Are there other examples?)

DarenW
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  • "It should allow doing anything that one might do in C++." You'll need to be more specific than that. Any Turing-complete language can do anything that one might do in C++. – user470379 Feb 02 '11 at 22:59
  • C++ is a hard enough language to write a compiler for. Can't imagine anyone writing a compiler that can do all of C++ in addition to another language. – JaredPar Feb 02 '11 at 23:01
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    For Scheme, [SRFI 49](http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-49/srfi-49.html) documents an indentation-based syntax, termed *I-expressions*, that avoids parentheses. – Marcelo Cantos Feb 02 '11 at 23:03
  • I'm hoping for some alternative syntax with an explicit "function" keyword, or something, to allow grepping for all methods declarations in a source file. Perhaps more readable type declarations. Perhaps alternatives to curly brackets (thought they're fine by me) or overall easier to parse? – DarenW Feb 02 '11 at 23:05
  • @Marcelo: yes, that is the idea. Now where is something that for C++? – DarenW Feb 02 '11 at 23:07
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    @user470379: the phrase "semantically isomorphic" from the SPECS paper seems to capture what I mean – DarenW Feb 02 '11 at 23:45

1 Answers1

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SPECS

Fred Nurk
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  • direct link: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/ModestProposal.html – Milan Feb 02 '11 at 23:08
  • Exactly the sort of thing I was looking for! – DarenW Feb 02 '11 at 23:16
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    The article has been deleted. Are there any other relevant resources? And if so, can you summarize rather than just leaving a bare link that's susceptible to linkrot again? – Michael Myers Dec 27 '11 at 16:32